This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event March 17, 2006: Libby Team Renews Request for Classified Documents. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.

The law firm of Jones Day submits the first classified document request to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on behalf of its client, Lewis Libby. The letter reads in part, “The documents requested include not only documents in the possession, custody, or control of your office, but also (a) documents in the possession, custody, or control of any agency allied with the prosecution, including without limitation the FBI, CIA, and the Office of the Vice President (‘OVP’), and (b) all other documents of which your office has knowledge and to which it has access.” The request is for, among other documents, Libby’s White House notes from May 2003 through March 2004; all documents pertaining to Libby’s morning intelligence briefings from May 2003 through March 2004, and including all Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs); any CIA damage assessment performed in light of the Plame Wilson identity leak; and any documents pertaining to Valerie Plame Wilson’s status as a clandestine CIA official. [Letter to Patrick Fitzgerald from Jones Day re United States v. I. Lewis Libby, 12/14/2005, pp. 2-5 ] None of the lawyers for either the prosecution or the defense are aware of an in-house CIA assessment of the “severe” damage caused by the leak (see Before September 16, 2003).

Judge Reggie Walton orders the CIA to turn over some of the highly classified intelligence briefings to the Lewis Libby defense team that it has requested (see March 2-7, 2006). Walton rejects CIA arguments that disclosure of the Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs) would be detrimental to national security. He says the agency can either delete highly classified material from the briefings, or provide “topic overviews” of the matters covered in them. “It is unlikely that this court would permit anything other than the general topic areas of these documents to be introduced at trial,” he writes. “The defendant does not need the explicit details of the intelligence documents he desires to obtain. The general topics of the documents would provide the defendant exactly the information he seeks, listings of the pressing matters presented to him during the times relevant to the case.” Walton only grants 46 days’ worth of the PDBs, instead of the nine months’ worth the defense had originally asked for (see December 14, 2005). He also orders the CIA to give Libby an index of the topics covered in follow-up questions that the former White House aide asked intelligence officers who conducted the briefings. [Associated Press, 3/10/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/10/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/10/2006 ; New York Times, 3/11/2006] Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt writes: “These documents most likely will never be seen by us or the jury. They are to assist Libby with refreshing his memory.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 3/10/2006]

The Libby defense team files a motion asking the court to disallow the prosecution to present classified information to Judge Reggie Walton without the defense’s presence. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald intends to argue that certain classified information is not pertinent to the defense of accused perjurer Lewis Libby, and wants to share that information with Walton, but not with Libby’s lawyers. Fitzgerald has argued that the information must be kept secret in order to protect national security, an argument that Libby’s lawyers say “rings hollow.” They tout Libby, who leaked classified information to reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), as someone who “has diligently protected some of this country’s most sensitive secrets throughout his many years of public service.” Fitzgerald has noted that an underlying criminal charge against Libby is the failure to adequately safeguard sensitive classified information. Walton has already ordered the government to turn over some classified information to the defense (see March 10, 2006). [Associated Press, 3/15/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/15/2006 ] Former state prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith observes that Libby has already violated his nondisclosure agreement against revealing classified information, and writes: “By breaking the law and releasing sensitive national security information, Scooter Libby forfeited his privilege of clearance—any presumption that he had the integrity to protect the nation’s secrets is gone. He is being treated like any other defendant in this situation—and who he worked for and how high his friends go in the government ought not matter one whit.” [Christy Hardin Smith, 3/16/2006]

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald responds to the Lewis Libby defense team’s third motion to compel the discovery of a huge number of classified documents (see March 17, 2006), including Presidential Daily Briefings, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002), and a raft of CIA documents. Judge Reggie Walton has already allowed the discovery of some of the requested documents (see March 10, 2006). Fitzgerald writes that Libby is seeking “nearly every document generated by four large executive branch entities relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger” (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and notes that such a request is overly broad, unnecessary for a perjury defense, and relies on an incorrect reading of the law. The request, Fitzgerald writes, “is premised on relevance arguments which overlook the fact that defendant is charged with perjury, not a conspiracy to commit various other crimes.” Hence the requsted documents go “far beyond the scope of what is relevant to the charges contained in the indictment.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/5/2006 ; New York Sun, 4/7/2006]

Lewis Libby’s lawyers file a supplemental brief extending and reiterating their arguments in favor of compelling the CIA, the White House, and other government agencies to submit a vast array of classified documents for Libby’s defense (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 31, 2006, (February 16, 2006), February 21, 2006, February 24, 2006, February 27, 2006, March 1, 2006, March 2-7, 2006, March 10, 2006, March 17, 2006, and April 5, 2006). The defense indicates it intends to call as witnesses the following government officials: former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, and former CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson. To fairly prepare for their testimonies, the defense argues, it must be supplied with all pertinent documents, classified or not, relating to their involvement in the leak of Plame Wilson’s identity, Plame Wilson’s covert status, the White House’s efforts to bolster its arguments for the Iraq invasion, and the White House’s attempts to discredit Wilson as a believable critic of its policies. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/12/2006 ]

Judge Reggie Walton issues an order disallowing, in large part, the Libby defense team’s motions to compel discovery of an array of government classified documents (see March 17, 2006, April 5, 2006, May 12, 2006, and May 19, 2006). “[T]he defendant’s motion to compel is largely without merit,” Walton writes. He recognizes that the charges against Lewis Libby are impacted by former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s criticism of the Iraq invasion (see July 6, 2003), Wilson’s trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and the exposure of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as a CIA official (see July 14, 2003). Walton intends to allow a “limited” amount of evidence to be admitted in regards to these concerns, but, he writes, “these events have merely an abstract relationship to the charged offenses.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 6/2/2006 ] Walton also compels prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to turn over “substitutes” for classified documents pertaining to Plame Wilson’s employment history with the CIA, potential damage caused by Plame Wilson’s identity disclosure, and the names of “three individuals whose identities were redacted from classified documents previously made available to the defense.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 6/2/2006 ] According to Salon’s Tim Grieve, Walton is clearly siding with Fitzgerald’s “small case” view over the Libby team’s “big case” view (see May 10, 2006), focusing primarily on the issue of Libby’s alleged perjury and disallowing Libby’s efforts to refocus the case on the Bush administration’s response to criticisms of its handling of the Iraq war. [Salon, 6/2/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton issues a court order that withholds certain “extremely sensitive” classified documents from the Lewis Libby defense team. Walton writes that he “carefully reviewed” the requests from special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and from the CIA to withhold the documents. The documents were provided to him ex parte and in camera, and Walton determined that they were irrelevant to the Libby defense efforts. Walton writes that the documents are “extremely sensitive and their disclosure could cause serious if not grave damage to the national security of the United States.” Walton has previously allowed other classified documents to be provided to Libby, and the CIA has provided documents requested by Libby that Walton has released to the defense (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, January 20, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 31, 2006, (February 16, 2006), February 21, 2006, February 24, 2006. February 27, 2006, March 1, 2006, March 2-7, 2006, March 10, 2006, March 17, 2006, April 5, 2006, May 3, 2006, May 12, 2006, May 19, 2006, and June 2, 2006). Many of the documents provided to Libby are redacted versions or summaries of the classified documents he viewed during his morning intelligence briefings. [MSNBC, 8/18/2006] Former prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith, writing for the progressive blog FireDogLake, writes of Walton’s decision: “That there is material so sensitive in this case that Libby is not entitled to it at all… speaks volumes to me in terms of what was endangered by him and Karl Rove opening their yaps in order to exact some political payback and CYA for Dick Cheney and the Bush administration. Putting personal political fortune ahead of the security of the entire United States during a time of armed conflict to cover your bosses’ *sses for lying the nation into war? Now THAT is unpatriotic.” [Christy Hardin Smith, 8/19/2006]

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